


Head of A Pin

by leonidaslion



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-16
Updated: 2011-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-14 19:31:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonidaslion/pseuds/leonidaslion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean thinks back on the one question that's been a constant in his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Head of A Pin

**Author's Note:**

> Contains canon character death.

There’s this old saying—more of a question, really—that Dean’s been hearing all his life. His father used to say it when he was on a bender. In the bad days after the fire. Before he learned to hunt.

“How many angels can you fit on the head of a pin, Dean-o?” he asks as Dean pushes and pulls him into bed. Muddy boots up on the covers before Dean can remove them.

Dad’s hand fumbles around for him. Finds his head and pats. “Dean-o, how many?”

“I don’t know, Dad.” Dean unlaces one boot and tugs: has to lean back to get the leverage to pull it off. “How many?”

“One.” And Dad's hand slips, stuttering down and across to the safety pin he’s taken to wearing in the lapel of his coat. His fingers brush across the shining metal. “There she is, right here. Mary …”

Then he passes out and Sammy’s crying—hungry, needs changing, just plain cranky—and Dean’s left looking at that pin, and thinking of his mother. Trapped there. Stuck on that pin like a butterfly on a collector’s board.

He throws the pin away almost every time, and once he even goes so far as to take it outside and toss it onto the wet highway, but it always comes back.

Then Dad finds Pastor Jim and the others, and things get better. The pin goes away and stays away. Sammy gets older. Dad stops drinking.

But it isn’t until years later that Dean finds out that the real answer to his father’s question—the one everyone else knows—isn’t one, but countless. Infinite. And he can’t say which bothers him more.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“How many angels can you fit on the head of a pin? Dean? How many? I wanna know.”

He wants to answer “one,” but instead he says, “Don’t be stupid, Sammy. It’s a metaphorical question.” And before Sammy can ask him what _that_ means he adds, “That means it’s not supposed to have an answer.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When Sam leaves for Stanford, Dean takes to carrying a safety pin in his pocket, thumbing it at odd moments during the day. He doesn’t tell his father; doesn’t ask why Dad stopped wearing one himself, even though he wants to.

He sits in the driver’s seat of the Impala—his, finally his, like some kind of consolation prize for losing his brother—and feels the slick, smooth slide of metal against his thumb. And he thinks of the question: of that question with one answer, or a hundred, or none.

He doesn’t think of his brother. Or of his mother. Or of what he’s doing here, or why he’s bothering to try at all.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

There’s a little girl sitting in the waiting room. The plastic chair is too tall for her and her heels are swinging almost four inches off the floor. She's staring at Dean while her mother fastens a Care Bear button to her dress: staring at the angry gash running through his forehead with a frank curiosity.

Dean stares back as the girl's mother, still fighting with the button, asks, “Do you know how many angels can fit on the head of this pin, Carrie?”

Dean's ears fill with a rushing sound—his heart pounding or maybe wings slapping the air— and he wants to answer for her: wants to scream, _Two, there’s two!_

He knows this answer the same way that he knows that the pin could spread out to encompass the whole world ten times over, and it still wouldn't be large enough for that cramped hospital bed. Wouldn't be anywhere near wide enough for the smell of his father leaning over him, or broad enough for the words that Dean can’t forget, can’t speak, won’t remember.

Two angels on the pin is more than enough, goddamn it, and no matter what Dad said _(I won't. Fuck him, I won't.)_ two is all there'll ever be.

Dean tightens his jaw as he turns his eyes away from the girl's to follow his brother down the hall. He can almost pretend he doesn’t hear her mother's whispered answer, although it's still echoing through his bones later that night while he pretends to sleep. The reverberation fills the space between his brother's steady breaths with a promise that leaves Dean aching and numb.

How many angels on the head of a pin?

 _Infinite._

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

There’s this old saying—more of a question, really—that Dean’s been hearing all his life. Only he thinks that somewhere along the line someone got it wrong. The real question isn’t _'How many angels can you fit on the head of a pin?'_ , it’s _'How many souls can you fit on the edge of a knife?'_

Dean should know: he’s been there all his life.

It’s a precarious place to be, and he's lost count of the times he’s almost fallen. The knife cuts: it slices and nicks and bleeds him, scraping off a strip here and a sliver there. He hangs on to it just the same, though, because it’s the only thing he knows.

People are always trying to shove him off: his father, Sammy. Taking pot-shots at him while he can’t move, can’t fight back. Dean’s a survivor, and he’s good at catching his balance, but this time they’ve tag-teamed him: the old one-two. They've hit him low and hard where it hurts. And he can tell Sam _it doesn’t count, you were drunk, you’re an asshole,_ but that doesn’t change the facts.

Dean’s always been certain of the answer to that question. He's known it since he ran from the only home he’s ever known with his brother in his arms. _One,_ he’d say if anyone ever bothered to ask him. _The answer’s one. The answer is Sam._

But now everything’s changed, and in his dreams he’s a child again: back in a hundred shitty motel rooms trying to manhandle his father into bed.

“How many angels can you fit on the head of a pin?” Dad keeps asking him, and he can’t hear Sammy crying anywhere.

He tries to shout—tries to tell his father that he’s asking the wrong question—and the only thing he can say is, “None. There’s none, Dad.”

The scary thing is, he’s starting to believe it.


End file.
